The Secret Sister by M. DeLuca (leveled readers txt) 📗

started to trickle down my cheeks. “That’s not how it happened. Vinnie was protecting Rosa. Perez stabbed her then attacked Vinnie.”

“That’s not the story that the jury heard, Anna. Cavallo was found guilty of killing Perez and Rosa.”

“He wouldn’t do that. He was trying to save her.”

“At the time you said you didn’t witness the incident, Anna.”

“I was a kid. My head was mixed up.”

“They decided not to press you for information in view of your age and the traumatic circumstances.”

“He’s in jail?”

“Not exactly. He was found to be suffering from severe PTSD.”

“But he’s locked up?”

She nodded. “Probably for life.”

Her voice became so soft I could barely hear her through the buzzing in my head. “The emergency social worker took you back to the group home on Ardis Street. During that period you turned thirteen, a kid hanged himself there and Birdie got involved with an older crowd. There was substance abuse involved and she ran away several times after that until she finally disappeared later at the age of fifteen.”

“No – never. Not without me.”

She reached across the table and took my hand. I ripped it away.

“That all happened before my time, Anna, but the documentation is all here. There’s even a picture of her at an ATM machine with one of the older teens, withdrawing money on a stolen card.”

She pushed a grainy black and white picture towards me. Two hunched grayish shapes in a glassed-in space. Formless blobs that could be anyone. I looked away.

“This is all a mistake. Why do I keep seeing her in the wallpaper room?”

Sympathy dripped from Linda’s eyes. “Like I always tell you. Almost fifteen years ago, somebody did a sloppy placement job. Failed to conduct a thorough background check. You were put into a house of substance abusers. They gave you drugs. Bad drugs that messed with your head. The memories are probably hallucinations, Anna. Distortions of the truth.”

I pulled the picture towards me. It was hard to make Birdie out from the mass of gray-white pixels, but a hunched form slowly materialized, her hair a shock of black static. I shoved it away.

“I have to go. Get ready for a trip.” I stood up, tipping the chair over in my haste.

She moved around the desk, a turquoise smudge. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay, Anna? You can wait here. I’ll get you a coffee. I’ll get our psychologist to go over some of the difficult stuff.”

I had to get air. That office was squeezing the life out of me.

“Gotta go,” I mumbled and flung the door open. I strode past the cubicle offices, avoiding eye contact with anyone and stopped at the Missing posters. Grainy, smiling faces looked out at me. A row of them. But where was Birdie’s picture? The one that said, Have you seen this girl? Disappeared without a trace. Her face. My face. The fuzzy dotted picture of her at the ATM.

Tears welled up in my eyes and I looked back. Linda stood at the far end of the hallway watching me, her arms folded, her eyes filled with pity. The elevator doors swished open and I dove inside. Guy could never know about any of this. I’d always looked out for myself. Didn’t need anyone sharing my private pain, so I wasn’t about to let anyone else into that world. Especially Guy. Too much was at stake. Besides, I’d come this far in my life by treating everyone as an outsider.

I burst out into the open air, longing for the calm anonymity of the mall. I was drained. Sucked out. Only the flowery coconut warmth, the tinkling music and the glitter of new things would soothe me. And I could also check out the shoe stores that I’d forgotten to even glance at the day before. After all, we were going to Vegas for five days. I’d need sandals for the pool, and some strappy, glitzy evening shoes. Hell – maybe I’d buy two or three pairs or more if the fancy took me.

14

When the plane took off for Vegas on Sunday evening, I lay back in my seat going over the visit to Linda Martin. She was dead wrong about my memory being distorted. Since I met Guy my thoughts had been more lucid. No worries about money meant more time to piece together our story – Birdie’s and mine – if I could just stay focused.

She’d been right about the group home. When Birdie and I were placed back there we went to KC’s funeral. KC was a sixteen-year-old boy who’d hanged himself in the bathroom with a chain of sneaker laces. We didn’t want to go but the staff said we had to pay our respects, even though Birdie said she’d faint if she saw a dead body. But I said I’d be right there for her, so she clung to me the entire car ride there.

When we entered the funeral chapel with its sweet stink of formaldehyde and flowers, Birdie clasped my hand so hard she crushed the bones of my fingers. Karen and Addie, young staff from the home, pushed us forward through the small crowd, herding us ever closer to the wooden casket at the front of the room.

Everyone from the group home was there as well as a few others who looked like KC’s relatives. His mom, a brassy blonde in red stilettos, tight jeans and a skimpy black leather jacket over a pink tank top, sobbed into a spotted handkerchief, her wails soaring up and over the hum of voices. A bald man with an eagle tattoo across the back of his head gathered her into his arms and kissed her hair.

Too late for that show now, whispered Karen.

She never had two minutes for him when he was alive, said Addie. Chose eagle head over her own kid.

When we reached the casket, Birdie and I were nose level with the body. Birdie pulled back, but Addie was unyielding.

He looks so peaceful, said Karen.

As if he’s sleeping,